


The Song Remains The Same

by tenyearsgone



Series: 365 Writing Challenge [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Pre Season/Series 1, Stanford Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-16
Updated: 2013-01-16
Packaged: 2017-11-25 18:11:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/641616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenyearsgone/pseuds/tenyearsgone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the prompt 'New Beginnings' in the <a href="http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/viewtopic.php?t=22824805&page=1">365 Writing Challenge </a>.<br/>Sam tries to start his life anew at Stanford.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Song Remains The Same

**Author's Note:**

> From the [365 Writing Challenge](http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/viewtopic.php?t=22824805&page=1). I guess it could be seen as a companion fic to [The Witching Hour](http://archiveofourown.org/works/612603), also by me.

He can’t really believe it – he’s here. Stanford is surprisingly unimpressive up close; for some reason he was expecting some sort of magical vision, towering buildings resplendent in sunshine (a foolish mental image, but well, this place was his dream). Still, it seems to Sam there’s a special smell to the air, an added clarity of vision. He’s here, the place where he can finally start over, lock his past up and throw away the key. A place where he doesn’t have to run from monsters anymore.

*

His roommate, Brady, is a nice, outgoing guy. There’s that sort of innocence about him that comes from not having seen the creatures that Sam and the Winchesters – he forces himself not to think of Dean or Dad – hunt. He envies Brady for it, and for a family that encouraged him every step of the way, who wanted him to go to college. A family that didn’t hunt monsters for a living.

Sometimes he looks at him and the differences between them stretch over an endless gulf, and he envies Brady, the normal kid, so much it almost hurts _._ Sam tells himself he’s a fool and thinks of something, anything else. Luckily, Brady never seems to notice, and things just go on smoothly.

He makes friends quickly, easily, just like he did whenever they moved to another town. He’s used to being the new kid, the slightly awkward one. Like then, though, he keeps himself at a distance. Not consciously, really, but he supposes it’s instinct. He can’t answer all the questions they have for him – he figures that telling them his father hunts things come straight out of nightmares won’t get him any favors. So he dodges the more personal questions, dances around them, really, lies when needed, even though he hates it. They notice, because it really doesn’t take much, and press him for answers. Sam doesn’t relent though, sticks to whatever fairytale he’s come up with or avoids direct answers. Eventually, they learn to stop questioning him, and by silent, mutual agreement they restrict the family subject to a minimum around him. Sam just smiles through it all, creates the image of  the perfect little boy, and carries on.

*

Sometimes Sam lies awake at night in his cramped dorm bed, can’t seem to get rid of the memories that come bursting out the seams of his mind. Sometimes he looks around him and is appalled at the normality, at the boredom of everyday life. In a way he thinks it’s comforting, there’s a reliability in his world now. Things are simple, constant. Not life-threatening. And it’s a refreshing change, a pleasant one.

That doesn’t mean he forgets. It takes him time to adjust, time to adapt to a life where there aren’t monsters constantly trying to kill him. He spends the first four months scrawling sigils and devil’s traps on every available (and unnoticed) surface, mutters exorcism rituals and the name of god in Latin whenever he can. He keeps a silver knife strapped to his calf, and at night slips it beneath his pillow. It takes some effort to hide it from Brady, but Sam is used to keeping secrets from his father, who noticed every single little detail, so it isn’t that hard, really.

He keeps salt on his person at all times, along with iron and little vials of holy water. He checks constantly for cold spots or strange occurrences, and runs an EMF scan every weekend. He tells himself he’s stupid, that this is stupid. That he doesn’t need reassurance like some _child_. But he keeps on doing it, tells himself it’s the force of habit. He doesn’t really admit to himself that maybe, just maybe, he’s afraid of his past and all its terrors catching up to him. That he needs the comforting feeling of cold metal to banish the dreams that haunt him at night and wake him up, sheets twisted around his body and skin damp and sweaty.

With time, though, he stops slipping his friends holy water, takes off the strap on his calf and doesn’t check the dorm for EMF as frequently. He gets used to life in college, to a _peaceful_ life, to having to worry only of finals or that book he can’t find anymore, but he still keeps his eyes open, takes precautions. Not as many as he should, but enough to reassure him and not so many as to make him feel paranoid. Eventually, he gives up on the holy water, flushing it down the toilet, and buries the EMF scanner in the depths of his drawer. He still keeps a box of salt under the bed though, just in case.

His past seems long gone, but right now, hiding the salt under his bed, Sam can’t help but think that maybe it will never loosen its grip on him.

*

Brady comes back from winter break visibly changed. It’s like he’s let go of most of his inhibitions. Sam doesn’t comment, but he can’t shake the feeling something happened over the holidays. Maybe trouble with his parents. He just ignores the sudden change and keeps on going.

It’s shortly thereafter that he introduces Sam to Jess. He doesn’t know exactly how to describe her, but the first (and only, really) adjective that comes to him is _beautiful._ Jess is slim and fair-skinned, but not too much. Her body curves gracefully, she’s perfectly proportioned. Her hair, blonde, tumbles down her shoulders in slight waves, and her eyes are keen and intelligent.

To put it mildly, he feels like he’s been run over with a truck – all air has left his lungs in a rush. He feels like he can barely string two words together, and is already starting to worry that he’ll look like an idiot when he tries to reply and his mouth keeps on opening and closing mutely, like a fish.

Her hand’s warm and firm when they shake, and Sam manages a (probably dopey) smile and a few words of greeting. Her answering smile seems to have floored him. Before he notices, he’s rambling, talking too fast of too much. He probably sounds like an idiot. But Jess seems genuinely interested, laughing along. Then suddenly she’s the one cracking jokes, trading stories and Sam – well, Sam feels like he’s falling head over heels far too soon.

*

Jess slips into his life easily, so much that it seems to Sam that wherever he looks there’s something to remind him of her. They walk to classes together, go out for coffee, do all the sorts of things Sam has seen normal couples do and thought were precluded for him. There’s no way she could have been a part of his world if he was still a hunter. There’s no way he could ever have been this happy had he stayed with Dad and Dean.

Sam embraces this symbiosis, this mutual contamination of their lives by the other, and wishes, in a certain way, that it was complete. He wishes he didn’t have to hide anything from her, hopes he shouldn’t have to make up excuses for all those calls he ignores. He tells her vague half-truths about his family and childhood, and tells himself that he’s protecting her. Tells himself that it’s for her own good. The few times he pulls out the box of salt under his bed or draws a devil’s trap it feels like he’s betraying her and his life for his past, so Sam forgets (or tries, tries really hard to forget) all about hunting and just concentrates on his degree and Jess.

He keeps his memories of hunting separate form Jess, putting up a wall between the two, and does just as he intended when he came to Stanford: he locks his past up and throws the key away, burying it for good. He tells himself he doesn’t mourn, not a little bit.

*

They’ve moved in together, and Sam is happy. Perfectly happy. Except sometimes, late at night, he’ll wake up with his hands itching for a gun, for the coldness of metal against his skin protecting against the nightmares. Occasionally, he finds himself checking the salt supplies, and is halfway across the room to the window or door until he realizes what he’s doing and puts the box back hastily before Jess notices anything odd. He tells himself once again it’s the force of habit, come from a lifetime of training, and squashes his instincts as best as he can, trying hard not to think about it.

Other times (and these are the worst), when he can’t fall asleep, his thoughts spiral downwards, towards the past he’s – supposedly – left behind him. Dean’s face looms in the darkness, his eyes reproachful, and Sam can’t help but think of all those days and nights spent huddled in the back seat of the Impala, the hours spent training, shooting at bottles and hand to hand combat, knuckles scraped and bloody. He remembers the feeling of the engine rumbling beneath them, a constant sound in the background.

He forgets about all this in the morning, once the sun shines. The light that Jess sheds into his life banishes away all the thoughts that had plagued him during the night, and they melt away like shadows in the day, retreating to the recesses of his mind.

*

It’s been a year since he’s moved in with Jessica. He doesn’t think about hunting – doesn’t let himself. There’s little salt in their kitchen, no trace of holy water, devil’s traps, and the only iron laying around isn’t – or will ever be – used to banish ghosts. Sam has no nightmares, except the ones in which he fails finals. Jess is happy. Sam is too. At least, he hopes so.

*

It’s late at night when he hears the sound of someone making his way clumsily through the house, boots stomping down hard on the floor. The robber – because it could only be a robber – is clearly either very inexperienced or very foolish. Sam pads after him, bare feet making no sound. Before leaving the room, he makes sure Jess is still asleep.

The robber’s strong, stronger than Sam thought. There’s something familiar in his posture, in the way he holds himself in a fight.  The way he knows all his strengths and weaknesses, his ability to predict where the next blow will land, almost as if –

“Easy, tiger.”

He freezes at the words – Dean’s in his house, sneaking in like a thief. It’s impossible. And then the lights turn on, with Jessica silhouetted against the doorframe. There’s something surreal in all this – the two irreconcilable parts of his life, standing in the same room. Dean’s cocky smile, his face shadowed, eyes hooded and speaking of darkness and nightmares, opposed to the light shining from Jess’s skin, the purity of her gaze.

Dean’s words loom heavily in Sam’s mind.

“Dad’s on a hunting trip, and he hasn’t been home in a few days.”


End file.
